


written out of the stories

by limerental



Series: Witcher Ficletvember 2020 [7]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Yennefer Deserves Better, a little bit meta, forgotten history, myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limerental/pseuds/limerental
Summary: “That’s the witch,” says Loretta. “She has no name in the legends. They say she stood over battlefields casting down fire and blood on her enemies. They say she stole children and ate them, collecting their tears for potent magic. And they say she bewitched Sir Geralt, and that they fell madly in love, intertwined by the threads of Fate.”Ficletvember Day 8 - prompt: written out of the stories
Series: Witcher Ficletvember 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012020
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	written out of the stories

The woman in the black dress is standing in the middle of the gallery when Loretta goes to lunch and is still standing there, stock still before the same canvas, when she returns nearly an hour later.

Most guests breeze through the little exhibit she helped curate, hurrying on their way to important university events, chatting, sipping coffee from the sandwich shop down the hall, but this woman stands, staring, the fit of her dress strange and her back held perfectly straight, her hands folded primly before her. Looking. Loretta is meant to TA a class in five minutes, but she’s been late before. She has time to sate her curiosity.

“What do you think about the painting?” Loretta asks, and the woman startles. Her eyes are a strange shade of blue, almost violet. 

“Who is he?” asks the woman. Loretta does not recognize her accent. Up close, the fabric of the woman’s dress ripples oddly, textured with fine, silver threads. She wears a floral perfume, tart and sweet.

“Sir Geralt of Rivia,” says Loretta. “A knight they say lived and in the 13th century. Though there are many attestations far earlier. Stories of, you know, monsters and lost princesses and daring rescues. Fairytales.”

“And the girl?”

The painting is of two figures, both caught in the midst of battle. The knight rides on horseback, chestnut steed lifted into an elegant half-rear, silver armor gleaming, a red cloak rippling behind him. His hand is readied to draw a sword from its gilded sheath, a second sword strapped to his back. On foot beside him, a teenaged girl stands at the ready with her own curved weapon drawn before her.

Both of them turn toward some unseen foe, faces hard and determined. Loretta has always admired the artist’s brushstrokes, especially in the bunched muscle of the horse’s haunches and in the soft, white hair that falls across the knight’s shoulders.

“Cirilla,” says Loretta. “His daughter. Though not by blood. The stories say that she was pledged to him for honorable deeds in service of the crown. Though that sounds a bit barbaric if you ask me.”

The woman snorts.

“I would have said the same,” she says. The way she stares at the two figures is almost mournful, her brow creased. “Do you know what happened to them?”

“Depends on who you ask, I guess,” says Loretta. “Lots of different versions to the legends, some of them contradicting. Details that don’t add up. Most scholars interpret Sir Geralt as an amalgamation of several different men that lived during that time. There’s some healthy debate about which. In some stories he’s ostracized, as monstrous as the beasts he fought, and in others, he’s noble and sharp-witted, delivering grand intellectual speeches before kings and foes alike. Some say, he died in a bloody battle, and some say he’ll return someday. And of course, the most far-fetched say he never died at all. That he’s still out there somewhere, roaming the Continent and fighting back the dark.”

The woman seems to consider this, lips pursed, before she turns suddenly and stalks away down the gallery, stopping before another painting and pointing with a thin finger. Loretta glances at her watch, well and truly late by now, but makes a quick and foolish decision and returns to the woman’s side.

The painting is of a shadowed figure standing before a purpled mountain range. Her hair is a frizz of black wire, and her nose is crooked and sharp, both hands raised high into a sky bruised with stormclouds, lightning and fire raining down on a distant battlefield.

“That’s the witch,” says Loretta. “She has no name in the legends. They say she stood over battlefields casting down fire and blood on her enemies. They say she stole children and ate them, collecting their tears for potent magic. And they say she bewitched Sir Geralt, and that they fell madly in love, intertwined by the threads of Fate.”

“They say a great many things,” says the woman in the black dress. 

“Some stories call her the Horsewoman of War. Some say that she was his Doom, that it was her meddling with Destiny that brought about his ultimate end. Or that in fleeing from her, Cirilla vanished from the world, never to be seen again.”

“The stories are not kind to her,” says the woman, her voice gone softer. Worn.

Loretta feels the strange desire to comfort her. As though sensing the thought, the woman looks at her and smiles. She has a very beautiful smile. 

“May I… may I buy you a coffee? I’m doing my thesis on this actually, if you’d like to talk more.”

"A coffee,” says the woman with a blank expression.

“I’m–” Loretta blushes. “Oh gosh, sorry if that was too forward I thought–”

“No, no,” says the woman in the black dress, laying her hand on her arm. “Don’t ever apologize for being forward. I would appreciate… a coffee. And there is a story I would like to tell you. What’s one more version of the legend? Though it may take some hours to get through. Do you have the time?”

“Yes,” Loretta lies. 

Time is only a construct after all.


End file.
